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" International sport and the end of apartheid. "
Keech, Marc.
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Latin Dissertation
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| Record Number
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1093482
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| Doc. No
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TLets285306
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| Main Entry
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Keech, Marc.
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| Title & Author
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International sport and the end of apartheid.\ Keech, Marc.
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| College
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Staffordshire University
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| Date
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1999
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| student score
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1999
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| Degree
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Ph.D.
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| Abstract
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The thesis evaluates the significance of sport's contribution to the end ofapartheid by locating sport in a network of international relations. Sports diplomacy isidentified as a relatively low-cost, low-risk but high profile tool of diplomatic policy. It isargued that the profile of sport in South Africa made the apartheid system particularlysusceptible to sports based protest. The study makes a case for a degree of theoreticalfusion to provide an appropriate context within which to analyse the unique nature of theAnti-Apartheid campaign. As an international issue, the politics of the Anti-Apartheidmovement are substantially encapsulated within a pluralist framework. It isacknowledged that to rely totally on such a framework would risk failing to capture themulti-layered nature of the conflict over apartheid. An adapted version of hegemonysport theory is therefore used to conceptualise the South African social formation andthe practice of sport therein.In the absence of quantitative measures, two measures of significance areproposed. First, the capacity of sports based protest to influence the policies ofinternational sports organisations and international bodies such as the United Nations andthe Commonwealth. Second, the ability of sport to prompt responses from thegovernment and in doing so, for sport to act as a prototype for more politicallysignificant measures that paved the way for the transformation to democracy. Attentionis paid to the processes through which sport became a globally visible feature of theAnti-Apartheid movement. It is argued that the global profile of sport contributed to amore coherent understanding of apartheid policies and in tum prompted policy actors topenalise (white) South Africa in the form of international isolation from sport.The research for the thesis has been conducted part-time since February 1994. Itnecessitated a research visit to South Mrica in the summer of 1997, and involvedprimary and secondary data collection, and elite interviewing in both South Mrica andthe United Kingdom. Unpublished data sources in Pretoria and Cape Town, and SouthAfrican newspapers have been used extensively.It is concluded that domestic sports protest highlighted the injustices of apartheidto the international community and contributed to establishing a non-racial ideology thatis the foundation of democratic South Africa. International sports sanctions, in the formof the sports boycott of South Mrica, provided a form of cultural diplomacy to state andnon-state actors alike that fulfilled an important symbolic function and served to maintainthe profile of the Anti-Apartheid campaign as an important global social movement. Theaccelerated readmission of South Mrica to international sport was an example that sportssanctions were also designed to promote change in addition to their punitive intent.
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| Subject
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Sports diplomacy; South Africa; Sanctions
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| Added Entry
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Staffordshire University
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